FYI.

This story is over 5 years old.

Tech

Motherboard TV: How Lo-Fi Wizards Peaking Lights Turn Junk Into Musical Magic

A re-run of our March 2010 interview with the band, which kicked off our Sound Builders series.

Peaking Lights is a married couple from Madison, Wisconsin that's become acclaimed for their hypnotic, pulsing tracks made with loops created on myriad bits of stereo and lo-fi equipment with the occasional bits of random electronics. We joined Aaron and Indra as they prepped for their 2010 tour, filming in their studio as they built new gear out of a haphazard collection of sound-making devices.

"I'm picking up on the waste of what consumer culture is just throwing away," says Aaron. "It's just garbage to a lot of people. But to me, I'm building something that I find a relationship with, building something that someone else can also find a relationship with… I'm trying to participate in the act of how energy flows."

Advertisement

Following the flow can be dicey, of course. "Sometimes I get careless and have something in my mouth that shouldn't be, like a live wire." Laughter. "It never feels good to have 110 volts flowing into your skull."

Since we saw them, Peaking Lights released 936, a very well-received sophomore effort that's been described as a psychedelic kaleidoscope. With that result in mind, Peaking Lights' experimental process of cobbling together beat-up electronics into musical devices sounds even more impressive. They've even found time to tend to another recent and well-received release: a baby named Miko.

Connections